Child's Play (20 page)

'Show me what?' demanded Wield. 'Show me up, you mean?'

'I don't know,' said Sharman, subsiding. 'I was all mixed up about you and Dad and everything. I don't know what . . . anyway, I didn't show you up, did I? I had the chance but I kept schtumm, didn't I?'

He stood before Wield, part defiant, part scared.

Wield could not feel his own emotional state was any clearer. How much of this was truth, how much lies? And how much an inseparable mix of the two?

He said, 'I had every chance to say something too.'

'Don't be bloody stupid,' said the boy in genuine surprise. 'Why the hell should you have said anything? You had everything to lose, nothing to gain.'

Then after a pause he added slyly, 'I bet you were shitting yourself, though.'

Wield nodded slowly.

'That's one way of putting it, I suppose,' he said.

The boy relaxed.

'Well,' he said. 'I suppose I'd better get my gear together.'

It was a toe in the water rather than a statement of intent.

'It's late,' said Wield. 'It's very late.'

In the early hours, Wield awoke. He lay very still, fearful of disturbing the slim, warm frame beside him in his narrow bed. But it was an unnecessary effort.

Sharman said, 'You awake, Mac?'

'Yes.'

'There's something I should tell you.'

'Oh aye?'

'I did think of trying to make something out of it, you being gay, I mean.'

'Is that right? Blackmail, you mean?'

'Well, no. I didn't think you were the blackmail type.'

'Scared you, did I?'

'Too bloody true! No, I thought I might make a few quid from the papers, though. I thought it'd make a good story.'

'And?'

'I rang one up. The local one.'

'The
Post
? Not their cup of tea, I shouldn't have thought.'

'No. They put me on to the other lot, the
Sunday Challenger
next time.'

'Next time? You rang twice?'

'Yes. I'm sorry. It was after we'd had that row. I didn't know what I was doing. That's when I ended up nicking stuff from that shop.'

'So you talked to the
Challenger.'

'Yeah. Some guy called Vollans. He wanted to meet and talk about money and things. But I wouldn't. And I didn't mention any names or anything, though he kept on asking.'

Wield smiled secretly at the way in which humble confession was changing to a display of virtue.

'You're sure?' he growled.

'Yes. Honest, Mac. I wouldn't ... I just rang off. I'm sorry. I wanted you to know.'

'Well, now I know,' said Wield. 'Let's get some sleep.'

A silence followed but not the silence of repose.

'Mac.'

'What?'

'It must be great being . . . well,
older,''
said Sharman wistfully. 'I mean, old enough not to be worrying about what's best to do, and how to do it, all the time.'

'Oh aye,' said Wield. 'You're probably right. It must be great.'

Chapter 5

The Highmore Hotel had started as a boarding-house in a quiet suburban street. Slowly it had started feeding on the houses on either side of it in the once stately Edwardian terrace. By the time the other inhabitants of the street were alerted to the danger, it was too late. Suddenly almost overnight the woodwork of the 'hotel' was painted a piccalilli yellow and the whole world could see that the monster was out of control. Now began the downward spiral of private householders rushing to sell their properties and by their own haste and numbers creating the falling market they feared.

A pub on the corner of the street had previously spilled its hungry customers towards the distant main road and its chippies. Now, with heavy traffic towards the Highmore and the neighbourhood's ever-growing number of multiple occupancies, a Tandoori takeaway plus a chip-bar cum video-rental completed the street's decline from upward-aspiring Edwardian to dingy 'eighties commercial.

Mr Balder was in fact a very hairy man who made it quite clear that it was no mere knee-jerk sense of civic duty that had made him ring the police but a passionately held belief in the right of landlords to get what was coming to them.

'Fortnight's rent for his room he owes me,' he averred. 'Fortnight's! What that idiot cashier of mine was thinking of! I'll kill her, I'll kill her!'

The idiot cashier turned out to be Mrs Balder who had clearly found Mr Ponting a very attractive and persuasive guest.

While Seymour was lifting prints from the room, Pascoe got the story, such as it was, of Pontelli's stay. A quiet man, kept himself to himself, implied he was a commercial working for some small London firm starting a selling operation in the North. No visitors. A couple of phone calls out from the hotel pay-phone, but none in till the previous Friday, when there'd been three or four in the afternoon and then a man had called in person at night asking for Mr Ponting.

Age? Hard to say. Youngish; well, twenties, thirties, that sort of thing, or well-preserved forty. He was well wrapped up. No, it wasn't a cold night, was it? But there had been a threat of rain after a fine day. Hair, lightish brownish. Height mediumish. Accent, not Yorkshire. Southern maybe. Or posh Scottish.

Pascoe gave up. Seymour appeared with several sets of prints. Balder, who evidently felt they should have gone through the dead man's pockets and extracted the money for his hotel bill, let his impatience show, and Pascoe coldly wondered how long it was since the fire department had examined his property or the local police his register.

They headed back to town, Pascoe feeling a curious sense of homecoming as they left the Leeds boundary and crossed into Mid-Yorkshire territory.

Christ, I really must be getting old! he mused. Next thing, I'll be nostalgic for Dalziel.

Back at the Station, they checked the prints and found one set from the Highmore room which matched the dead man's. Dalziel was not yet back from his Rotary lunch, so Pascoe sketched out a report, dropped it on the fat man's desk, and set out with Seymour to Troy House.

'Funny business, this,' observed the young constable as they once more left the town.

'In what way?' said Pascoe encouragingly. He had moderately high hopes of Seymour.

'Well, this chap Pontelli says he's really Huby who was supposed to be killed in the war. And he ends up dead from an old bullet fired by an old German pistol.'

Pascoe sighed and said, 'That's it, is it? Better stick to the
paso doble
if that's your best shot at detective work.'

Seymour looked and felt hurt at this unkindness. Since his translation from disco to ballroom under the guiding hand of Bernadette McCrystal, he had grown used to cracks about sequins on his socks and yards of tulle, but Pascoe rarely joined in this lumbering jocularity. Seymour had a forgiving nature, however, and as they drove up to Troy House, he said, 'Look! They've got horses.'

'Donkeys,' said Pascoe. 'And that donkey with the horns is a goat.'

Well, pardon me for breathing, thought Seymour.

The door opened before Pascoe could ring.

'Mr Pascoe?' said the woman who stood in the threshold. 'Mr Thackeray said you would be coming.'

'Miss Keech, I presume. This is Detective-Constable Seymour.'

Miss Keech extended her hand to Pascoe, nodded at Seymour and led them into the house.

She was more
grande dame
than housekeeper, or perhaps it was much the same thing, thought Pascoe, whose acquaintance with both types was cinematic. She walked rather stiffly, body erect, head high. She had strong grey hair, elegantly coiffured, and was dressed in a long dark burgundy skirt and a blue silk blouse. A faint effluvium of cat or dog laced the air of the entrance hall but was completely absent from the large drawing-room into which they processed.

'Please be seated. Would you care for some tea?'

The trolley was ready and the steam issuing from the teapot spout showed that it was already massing. She must have been watching from the window.

'Thank you,' said Pascoe. 'It's a lovely house.'

'You think so?' said Miss Keech, pouring the tea. 'I've always found it rather barn-like. But it's been my home now for many years and doubtless will be till I die, so I shouldn't complain. Buttered scones?'

Pascoe shook his head but Seymour fell to with a will.

'Yes,' said Pascoe. 'I gather that under the terms of your late employer's will, you are to remain in charge here.'

'Unless, of course, her son reappears and wishes to make other arrangements,' said Miss Keech pedantically.

'You don't feel this is likely? I mean, you didn't share Mrs Huby's faith in her son's survival.'

'Mrs Huby was my employer, Inspector. I started as her nursery-maid and I ended as her companion. As a maid, I learnt to be obedient. As a companion, I learnt to be discreet.'

'But as a friend . . .'

'I was never a friend. You don't pay friends,' she said sharply.

Pascoe drank his tea and took stock. This was not what he had expected. The rich, snobbish, racist Gwendoline Huby sounded to have been a formidable woman. He had not expected her companion to be other than meek and self-effacing.

He probed further.

'You mean Mrs Huby was sensitive to the . . . er . . . social gap, between you?'

'Mrs Huby was sensitive to the social gap between her and half her relatives,' snapped Miss Keech. 'Starting at her husband. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. It was not a snobbish thing, you understand. More an aspect of her faith in an orderly universe.'

'The rich man in his castle, the poor man . . .'

'Yes, precisely. She saw no reason to quarrel with the world as God had created it.'

'Including white supremacy, I gather,' said Pascoe, recalling the legacy to Women For Empire.

'She was not political in the strict sense,' defended Miss Keech, perhaps guilty at her posthumous disloyalty. 'She sincerely believed that if God put the black people in backward countries and the whites in civilized countries, that was part of his plan.'

'But the supposed death of her son wasn't?'

'No. She persuaded herself not. What I don't think she could bear was the sense of responsibility . . .'

'I'm sorry? From the sound of her, she'd have found someone else to blame surely?'

'Oh yes. She and Mr Huby certainly blamed each other.
She
was so proud that he got a commission and everyone could see that he was a gentleman.
He
was so pleased when he went to do commando training and everyone could see he was a real man.
She
thought he courted danger to please his father, and
he
thought she'd made him soft. But inside, I think they both blamed themselves. Parents do, don't they? Even the most selfish and self-centred. In the dark of the night, all alone, it's hard to hide from the truth, isn't it? Mr Huby I think learned to bear it. She never did, and that's why she couldn't let him be dead.'

Seymour had his notebook balanced on his knee but he clearly saw no need to divert his hands from the buttery scones to record any of these psychological insights.

'You've obviously thought deeply about this, Miss Keech,' said Pascoe.

'Not really,' she denied, suddenly all brisk and housekeeperish. 'Now, I presume you've come to see me about this man. The one whose photograph appeared in the
Evening Post.'

'Why should you think that?' wondered Pascoe.

'Because Mr Thackeray told me,' she said with a show of exasperation.

Pascoe smiled, produced a copy of the photograph and handed it over.

'Do you recognize him, Miss Keech?'

'I would say, without being absolutely sure, that he was the man who interrupted Mrs Huby's funeral at the graveside. I expect Mr Thackeray described the incident?'

'Yes, he did,' said Pascoe. 'That was the only time you saw him?'

'It was.'

'Mr Thackeray felt there was what he called a Huby look about his features. Would you agree?'

'To some extent,' she said. 'A certain coarseness of feature, perhaps, not unlike John Huby, the publican. But nothing of the Lomases, that's for sure.'

'We're trying to trace his movements on Friday night. You weren't disturbed at all, were you? Unexplained phone calls? Or noises outside?'

'A prowler, you mean? No, Mr Pascoe. And surrounded as I am by livestock, I think I would have been well warned.'